"In Andy Coolquitt’s first show at Lisa Cooley, in 2008, he carefully leaned a handful of tall, thin silver and yellow metal poles against the gallery's walls. Some were balanced on light bulbs; one was propped gingerly on a model of a hand extending its middle finger. The space felt like a somber, slightly fragile pagan sanctuary. For this second outing, Coolquitt has transformed it space into a humming party hall. Coolquitt’s poles have returned, but they line the full expanse of the walls this time, and ooze color: fluorescent greens, reds, pinks, and oranges. BBBBBBBBBBOBBBBBBBBBB’s flickering field of blue arrives courtesy of Bic lighters embedded in a ceramic plank. They leap off the floor too, as in 0+0 (2009), which reaches from wall to ceiling. Its wrapped with black carpet and crossed with another white pole bearing two light bulbs, forming a ghostly cross.

Elsewhere, Coolquitt simply sets found objects in rows, letting associations form, acting like a more precocious, more abstruse Haim Steinbach. In TEMP/PERM (2010), he offers a roll of paper, two of those rude fingers, another lighter, and a small assortment of other items around a pink board that he has tethered to the ceiling by two strings. As in most of Coolquitt’s work, any meaning is inscrutable, but it’s a serious visual pleasure. There are a few less-characteristic works on display as well. A nice soft place for meeting people is a rectangular cube covered with a velvety lilac-cored fabric and mounted low on the wall, just above the floor on which it could actually be used to serve its function. A dirty, abused ball sits off to its side. It is a disquieting addition: these works may be fun, relatively light-hearted playthings, Coolquitt reminds us, but it would be unwise to get too comfortable.

Coolquitt has also adorned a semispherical light with a curly blonde wig to create one wallmounted sculpture — a goofy, loving tribute to Craig Kauffman’s vacuum-formed Plexiglas sculptures that one wishes Kauffman could have lived to see. It's enough to decide that the show's title — however bizarre (is that a majestic plural?) — is undoubtedly true."

-Andrew Russeth

"Karen Rosenberg concluded her recent New York Times review of Andy Coolquitt’s show We Care About You by branding one piece “Minimalism’s warm and fuzzy side.”  When you acknowledge that many of the linear, illuminated sculptures in this show could also be used as seating and light fixtures, the whole project could sound like an ad for furniture. Considering Cooquitt’s contemporary color scheme, and the references made to human scale, this exhibition even sounds as if it could be as comfortable in a Soho showroom as in a Lower East Side gallery.  However accurate Rosenberg’s assessment may be, the critic’s pre-occupation with creating parallels to existing bodies of work actually glosses over some of the more unique aspects to this show.  In fact, attending Coolquitt’s exhibition at Lisa Cooley is more like walking into the workshop of a mad candy maker/inventor than any experience at CB2.

One of the keys to We Care About You is laid out in the gallery press release when the artist groups his work into “three levels of the life of the object.”  This quote could also be interpreted as three levels of object into art, as the exhibition divides the objects hierarchically into the three categories; source object, unfinished art object and art object.  The end result is a fabulous, static but active environment of production where on the one hand the thought process is exposed, yet when we see the conclusive results we are forced to question the logic of such ridiculous endeavors as a sculpture that rests all its weight on a lit bulb, as we see in goose (2009). 

We Care About You is a must see for this art season, but there are some drawbacks.  For instance, it is not immediately clear without the assistance of the image list which objects are art works and which are not.  This is also a show that might have benefited from a more sterile environment as the exhibition space itself seems to add to the blur between art and non-art, especially with the unfinished wood floor, which matches the work perfectly."

-Jackson McDade

"The gallery scene on Manhattan's Lower East Side

LISA COOLEY, one of a bunch of galleries now gathering on Orchard Street, is showing colorful work by a Texas sculptor named Andy Coolquitt. Sitting somewhere between found-object assemblage and eco-friendly design, Coolquitt's works tend toward head-high sticks that lean against the wall, often with fixtures and light bulbs attached -- as though he'd had to cobble together a floor lamp from fragments of old canes, broom handles and piping. The smallest, simplest work in the show somehow manages to hold its own, and provoke a smile: It's nothing more than a tiny swatch of aquamarine nylon, less than an inch by an inch, pinned in place with a clear-plastic thumbtack. If there's already too much junk in our consumerist world, Coolquitt manages to add as little to it as possible -- without entirely abandoning the material pleasures of art. At 34 Orchard St. through June 27. Call 212-680-0564 or visit http://www.lisa-cooley.com."

-Blake Gopnik

"In his exuberant second solo show on the Lower East Side, Andy Coolquitt reconciles Minimalism’s control-freak tendencies with an appreciation of awkwardness and imperfection. Using broom handles, plastic straws and other found objects, sometimes wired to light bulbs, he turns out serial objects with a D.I.Y. twist.

Several staffs made from pipe segments recall the multicolored wooden 'Barres' of Andre Cadere, until you see the rust and solder. Other works made with striped fabric are closer in spirit to Blinky Palermo, or maybe Jim Lambie.

As in Mr. Lambie’s work, color redeems a couple of constructions that aren’t otherwise all that complex — in particular, two towers of stacked cigarette lighters. One consists of translucent yellow and orange lighters laid end to end and looks like a tube of neon. The other, opaque blue lighters glued side by side to a strip of clear acrylic, evokes ancient Egyptian inlays of turquoise and lapis lazuli.

Mr. Coolquitt’s sculptures derive some of their power from a hectic, aggressive installation. Most of the bars and rods lean against the wall, but some protrude from it or form a kind of barrier. Several pieces double as floor lamps or overhead lighting fixtures.

Another work, a square-shape wall relief upholstered in a soft pale-blue fabric, has a purely social function: it’s titled 'A nice soft place for meeting people.' Think of it as Minimalism’s warm and fuzzy side."

-Karen Rosenberg

Erin Shirreff's video Roden Crater, 2009, will be in an upcoming exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art titled Between Here and There: Passages in Contemporary Photography. The video will be shown alongside works by Richard Long, Ed Ruscha, On Kawara, Doug Aitken, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Gabriel Orozco, Robert Smithson, Anne Turyn, Jeff Wall, and others.

Between Here and There: Passages in Contemporary Photography is organized by Douglas Eklund, Associate Curator in the Department of Photographs.

The exhibition runs from 2 July 2010 - 13 February 2011 and will be featured on the Museum's website. For more information including the official press release, please see the Metropolitan Museum of Art

"The Best of Gallery Week

Andy Coolquitt gives you the finger


Andy Coolquitt is one of the art world’s favorite rabble-rousers, perhaps best known for his always-morphing “living studio” that kept him from graduating from the University of Texas. His work is primarily made from objects he finds on the street, which he then turns into leaning, sometimes functioning sculptures, like the assemblages made of working lightbulbs in his last appearance at Lisa Cooley. His sophomore show, “We Care About You,” doesn’t shy away from his usual brand of brazen humor: It includes several small sculptures of hands giving the finger—meant to illustrate the “exchange of energy that happens between humans”—but you can take that however you want."

-Anonymous

MoMA PS1 announces Erin Shirreff, along with some 67 other artists, will be in the quinquennial exhibition Greater New York, organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Connie Butler and Neville Wakefield. The exhibition runs from May 23 to October 18, 2010. For a complete list of participating artists as well as the official press release, please visit PS1 Contemporary Art Center.

Alex Fleming will be participating in a group show titled Reflection at the SoHo location of Peter Blum Gallery. The opening reception will be on Friday May 14, 2010 from 6 - 8pm. For more information please visit Peter Blum Gallery.